your partiality for me is the only instance in which I can call it in question. Thanks, my good Sir, for if I the prints I am much your debtor for them recover from my ill state of health, and live to revisit Coxwould this summer, I will decorate my study with them, along with six beautiful pictures I have already of the sculptures on poor Ovid's tomb, which were executed on marble at Rome. It grieves one to think such a man should have died in exile, who wrote so well on the art of love. Do not think me encroach'tis either to borrow, or beg ing if I solicit a favour (to beg if you please) some of those touched with chalk which you brought from Italy · I believe you have three sets, and if you can spare the imperfect one of cattle on coloured paper, 'twill answer my purpose, which is namely this, to give a friend of ours. You may be ignorant she has a genius for drawing, and whatever she excels in she conceals, and her humility adds lustre to her accomplishments I presented her last year with colours, and an apparatus for painting, and gave her several lessons before I left town. · I wish her to follow this art, to be a complete mistress of it and it is singular enough, but not more singular than true, that she does not know how to make a cow or a sheep, though she draws figures and landscapes perfectly well; which makes me wish her to copy from good prints. If you come to town next week, and dine where I am engaged next Sunday, call upon me and take me with you I breakfast with Mr. Beauclerc, and am engaged for an hour afterwards with Lord O-; so let our meeting be either at your house or my lodgings. do not be late, for we will go, half an hour before dinner, to see a picture the character of our friend - such goodness is painted in that face that when one looks at it, let the soul be ever so much unharmonized, it is impossible it should remain so. - I will send you a set of my books they will take with the generality the women will read this book in the parlour, and Tristram in the bed-chamber. Good night, dear Sir I am going to take my whey, and then to bed. Believe me Yours most truly, L. STERNE. CXXVII. TO MISS STERNE. MY DEAREST LYDIA, Feb. 20, Old Bond-street. My Sentimental Journey, you say, is admired in York by every one and 'tis not vanity in me to tell you that it is no less admired here but what is the gratification of my feelings on this occasion? The The want of health bows me down, and vanity harbours not in thy father's breast this vile influenza be not alarmed, I think I shall get the better of it and shall be with you both the first of May; and if I escape, 'twill not be for a long period, my child unless a quiet retreat and peace of mind can restore me. subject of my letter has astonished me. She could but know little of my feelings to tell thee that, under the supposition I should survive thy mother, I should bequeath thee as a legacy to. No, my Lydia! 'tis a lady, whose virtues I wish thee to imitate that I shall entrust my girl to I mean that friend whom I have so often talked and wrote about from her you will learn to be an affectionate wife, a tender mother, and - a sincere friend and you cannot be intimate with her without her pouring some part of the milk of human kindness into your breast, which will serve to check the heat of your own temper, which you partake in a small degree of. Nor will that amiable woman put my Lydia under the painful necessity to fly to India for protection, whilst it is in her power to grant her a more powerful one in England. But I think, my Lydia, that thy mother will survive me do not deject her spirits with thy apprehensions on my account. I have sent you a necklace, buckles, and the same to your mother. My girl cannot form a wish that is in the power of her father, that he will not gratify her in and I cannot in justice be less kind to thy mother. I am never alone The kindness of my friends is ever the same I wish though I had thee to nurse me; but I am denied that. Write to me twice a week, at least. God bless thee, my child, and believe me ever, ever, thy Affectionate father, L. S. CXXVIII. TO MRS. J. Tuesday. - --- YOUR friend is scarce able to write poor he has been at death's door this week with a pleurisy—I was bled three times on Thursday, and blistered on Friday The physician says I am better God knows, for I feel myself sadly wrong, and shall, if I recover, be a long while of gaining strength. Before I have gone through half this letter, I must stop to rest my weak hand above a dozen times. Mr. J was so good to call upon me yesterday. I felt emotions not to be de scribed at the sight of him, and he overjoyed me by talking a great deal of you. Do, dear Mrs. J—, entreat him to come to-morrow or next day, for perhaps I have not many days or hours to live I want to ask a favour of him, if I find myself worse that I shall beg of you, if in this wrestling I come off con'tis a bad omen my spirits are fled queror - do not weep, my dear lady cious to shed for me -- your tears are too pre- the bottle them may cork never be drawn. Dearest, kindest, gentlest, and best of women! may health, peace, and happiness prove your handmaids! If I die, cherish the remembrance of me, and forget the follies which you so often condemn'd - which my heart, not my head, betrayed me into. Should my child, my Lydia, want a mother, may I hope you will (if she is left parentless) take her to your bosom; You are the only woman on earth I can depend upon for such a benevolent action. I wrote to her a fortnight ago, and told her what I trust she will find in you.* Mr. J will be a father to her he will protect her from every insult, for he wears a sword which he has served his country with, and which he would know how to draw out of the scabbard in defence of innocence. Commend me to him as I now commend you to that Being who takes under his care the good and kind part of the world. Adieu All grateful thanks to you and Mr. J. Your poor affectionate friend, L. STERNE. * From this circumstance it may be conjectured that this Letter was written on Tuesday the 8th of March, 1768, ten days before Mr. Sterne died. Sentimental Journey, etc. 22 the liquid dissolution drowned the late sympathetic features, Yes so pleasing in their harmony, are now blasted withered and are dead; her charms are dwindled into a melancholy which demands my pity my friend our once sprightly and vivacious Harriot is that very object that must thrill your soul. How abandoned is that heart which bulges the tear of innocence, and is the cause the fatal cause of overwhelming the spotless soul, and plunging the yet-untainted mind into a sea of sorrow and repentance Though born to protect the fair, does not man act the part of a demon? - first alluring by his temptations, and then triumphing in his victory when villany gets the ascendancy, it seldom leaves the wretch till it has thoroughly polluted him - T*******, once the joyous companion of our juvenile extravagancies, by a deep-laid scheme, so far ingratiated himself into the good graces of the old man that even he, with all his penetration and experience (of which old folks generally pique themselves), could not perceive his drift, and, like the goodness of his own heart, believed him honourable: had I known his pretensions - I would have flown on the wings of friendship, of regard of affection, and rescued the lovely innocent from the hands of the spoiler; be not alarmed at my declaration I have been long bound to her in the reciprocal bonds of affection; but it is of a more de |